Quickly after Shannon Lucas started serving a sentence at a Colorado midway home, her treatment started to vanish.
Lucas had been sentenced to eight years in neighborhood corrections in lieu of jail for her function in a 2018 housebreaking involving her ex-boyfriend. At 41, she had by no means been in bother with the regulation earlier than.
“I did consider that I used to be in a spot that was for justice,” she mentioned of her first weeks on the Larimer County Neighborhood Corrections facility in Fort Collins in October 2018. “I actually thought stepping into there that I used to be going to be protected.”
That might change lower than a month later when she reported the theft of her prescription medicines, which deal with her post-traumatic stress dysfunction and extreme nervousness. As an alternative of assist, she received a lesson in how little recourse residents of those amenities have to handle wrongdoing within the system.
Lucas filed a grievance with administration, which, as a substitute of investigating, wrote her up for “treatment misconduct.”
Her lawyer requested safety footage from the ability which may present who’d taken the capsules. A choose ordered that it’s given to the lawyer on the situation that it not be launched to anybody else.
Hand and Emily Humphrey, director of Larimer County’s felony justice division, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Midway homes maintain residents’ medicines and supply doses underneath supervision. And the Larimer County Neighborhood Corrections facility had a documented downside with monitoring medicines, based on state information.
A 2016 audit discovered that 1 in 4 of the treatment counts that auditors reviewed have been inaccurate and that employees weren’t “persistently following coverage and procedures” to handle inaccuracies. Auditors mentioned corrective motion was wanted. A 2019 audit discovered that the ability didn’t have procedures for disposing of medicines. State auditors haven’t reviewed the ability’s treatment practices since.
When residents of Colorado’s midway homes consider they’re victims of wrongdoing, they’re usually left with few choices for restitution in a system that lacks a streamlined, impartial grievance course of and does little to allay their fears of retaliation.
Every facility is required to have a grievance coverage, however dozens of residents from a number of midway homes advised ProPublica that they didn’t use it as a result of they feared employees would retaliate. Even residents who’d graduated from a program mentioned they have been reluctant to criticize their outdated facility as a result of their parole officer may ship them again there. An individual might be expelled from a program for “any cause or for no cause in any respect,” a 2012 regulation says. Individuals who get expelled are sometimes incarcerated or resentenced.
A 2017 audit of a unique Colorado facility, ComCor, discovered that formal complaints weren’t “persistently maintained, reviewed or responded to.” Shoppers mentioned they believed complaints “merely wound up within the trash,” auditors wrote.
Mark Wester, the chief director of ComCor, mentioned that the ability permits “shoppers to work in the neighborhood, be productive residents, obtain consumer centered therapy, whereas having accountability and supervision that improves neighborhood security.” Wester didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the dealing with of complaints.
The state has the facility to research residents’ complaints nevertheless it hardly ever does, based on Katie Ruske, supervisor of the state’s Workplace of Neighborhood Corrections. Complaints submitted to the state are forwarded to one of many local people corrections boards, which ProPublica discovered usually look previous violations or fail to comply with as much as see if issues are addressed.
Ruske, who has held her job since 2018, may recall just one such investigation, which concerned an alleged violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Beginning in 2023, the state will assessment consumer complaints as a part of its audits.
On the Larimer County Neighborhood Corrections facility, Lucas observed in late October 2018 that extra capsules had disappeared. Lucas requested the employees member on obligation to rely them: 24 capsules have been lacking.
In a panic, Lucas submitted a second grievance to employees and known as 911. Lucas mentioned she wanted documentation to interchange the treatment earlier than she went into withdrawal. “I can have seizures, I can die if I don’t take my treatment,” Lucas mentioned.
A Larimer County Sheriff’s Workplace incident report signifies that Lucas spoke to Officer Aaron Hawks, who suspected she was taking greater than the prescribed quantity of her treatment. (An inside affairs investigation would later discover that the officer violated insurance policies, together with failing to take care of an “neutral angle” towards Lucas by calling her “a felon” and referring to neighborhood corrections employees as “vetted.” The report states he didn’t collect the proof that will be essential to conclude Lucas was at fault.) The Larimer County Sheriff’s Workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The power responded by issuing Lucas a Class 1 violation — probably the most critical — for submitting a “false” police report. Such violations can lead to termination from a program, based on the ability’s guidebook.
“If I’m revoked from this program, I’m going instantly to jail” for eight years, Lucas mentioned. “I used to be so scared I wasn’t going to have the ability to see my daughters.”
Lucas appealed to administration, who rapidly denied her grievance. She wrote one other attraction and met with the ability’s assistant director, who advised her that she too believed Lucas was liable for the lacking treatment, Lucas mentioned. Lucas was then required to attend an administrative listening to with administration to find out if she can be terminated from this system. Her request to have a lawyer current was denied.
She was finally allowed to stay in this system, however her sentence was prolonged by a month, based on courtroom paperwork.
Below the course of her physician, she started receiving weekly prescriptions as a substitute of month-to-month so she may preserve a better eye on her treatment. However capsules continued to vanish.
In March 2019, she gave her new prescription to a employees member, Lauren Hand. Lucas recollects the correctional companies specialist telling her, “Shannon, there’s two capsules lacking however I’m not gonna say something.”
A month after Lucas left the ability in April 2019, Lauren Hand was charged with two misdemeanors and a petty offense for illegal possession of a managed substance, official misconduct and theft. She resigned shortly after, based on an incident report.
By then, Lucas had graduated from the residential program and moved residence to finish her sentence with frequent check-ins on the facility.
Lauren Hand, who’s the daughter of the ability’s director, Tim Hand, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The end result of the costs towards Lauren Hand is unclear as a result of the documentation is just not public. Based on Raymond Daniel, information supervisor for the district lawyer’s workplace within the eighth Judicial District, the case would nonetheless seem in public information even when the costs have been dropped. Nonetheless, if the case was sealed or expunged, the general public wouldn’t be capable of view the information, he mentioned in an e mail.
Hand labored at one other midway home in Boulder earlier than accepting a place at a youth detention heart operated by the state’s Division of Youth Providers in October 2021, based on her LinkedIn profile. As of January 2022, she now not labored there, based on a spokesperson for the company.
Lucas filed a lawsuit over her stolen treatment towards Lauren Hand and different employees members on the Larimer County Neighborhood Corrections facility, in addition to the board of county commissioners and the local people corrections board. Lucas alleged that employees on the facility retaliated towards her for reporting the lacking treatment to police.
The choose dismissed the case in July 2022, saying, amongst different issues, that Lucas’ allegations have been overly broad. Lucas has filed an attraction.
Although Lucas is again at residence together with her daughters, she is required to report back to the ability for drug assessments, generally a number of occasions every week, and for conferences together with her case supervisor. She mentioned it’s a battle to enter the ability with out having a panic assault.
Staff on the midway home emphasize the significance of taking accountability for one’s actions, she mentioned, however employees aren’t all the time held to that commonplace.
“They nonetheless say that I used to be stealing my treatment,” Lucas mentioned. “They actually may have simply accomplished the best factor. They might have simply listened to me.”
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